The Goth and His Psycho.

The Goth and His Psycho: [Chapter Twenty Six]

 Warning: Scenes of violence, child abuse hinted at but not described. Read at your own risk. 

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  Alex looked on with fear in his heart and panic in his bones. He had tried, tried so hard to save the girl opposite him. He'd wanted so badly to fix her, to make it better, to reconstruct the soul that had been destroyed. 

  But looking at her then, with her small, child-like hands wrapped around the head of a boy so much larger than her, seeing her muscles tense and her hands clench to prepare to twist and snap and break the bone like a child would snap a twig, it was terrifying. It was everything Alex had feared. That she would return to what she had been like before, or worse, he would discover she never really left that place at all, just carefully hid it from him in order to make him feel better about his attempts to save her. 

  But he couldn't. There was no saving her. 

  He realised it then, in that moment when he screamed her name and she looked up. Because the only thing that disappeared from her face was the sadistic grin that had graced her lips. There was no regret in those large wide eyes, no remorse or guilt or grief at what she had done. There was just the sadness in her eyes when she realised he was looking at her like he had done all those weeks ago. Like she was a monster, something to be feared. She cried then because she realised that he knew; knew that there was no saving her. 

  She didn't turn towards him, she didn't even stop holding the boy. She just looked at him, head tilted to the side, and they were suddenly the only two there. He stared, begging without words for her to stop, to just stop and she just stared. 

  But she didn't stop, she blinked, once, twice, three times. Then she opened her mouth, choked on her tears, and blinked again. 

  "Run" she whispered, but he caught it over the crackling of the fire. 

  He frowned. 

  "Run, Pansy. Run away" she rasped, her hands were still on the boy, and Alex looked between the two, unsure. "RUN!" she roared. 

  He started, and turned, scrambling and tripping over himself, rushing to get to the edge of the clearing and into the darkness that would conceal him from the monster he loved. 

  He turned at the edge, looked back towards her. She still stood where he'd left her, hands on the boy's cheeks. The largest one was curled on his side on the ground, clutching his throat and gasping, but he was struggling to get to his feet. The other two were circling, broken bottles in their hands and small knives. Alex was leaving her to this, to these boys who would try to hurt her and fail, these boys' that would be murdered. He wondered if he should stay, help Bree, or help them. 

  But then he looked at her, and he saw the insanity in her eyes and knew she carried a tornado in her chest and it was about to rip apart all that stood in her path. He looked into her eyes, the green jewels he'd stared into while laughing and kissing, he watched them harden and freeze, becoming wild and cruel. Her face, the face he'd held between the sheets and kissed while she slept, closed off, became dead and barren like a burned waste-land with no chance of regrowth or recovery. 

  He turned and ran. 

*** 

  He left, she watched as he looked at her and the love slipped from his face and his eyes and it was her fault. She watched the horror wash into his face and the fear set his hazel eyes alight. She watched him look towards the boys' that had hurt him with worry in his gaze because he knew that what she was capable of no person deserved to endure.